OMG 
Another moron that wants to go back to the gold standard.
OMG Another moron who does not understand that the way modern economics is taught in academia and described in media is not the actual way modern economies work.
I understand enough of it that using things like the gold standard simply doesn't work. All the world's economists that are involved in actually running countries and banks seem to agree on that. Not because of some global conspiracy (please don't go there...) but simply because fiat money works.
For the economists and those who pay their salaries; definitely yes. (No, I do not believe in global conspiracies. Or in conspiracies in general: that which can be explained by shortsighted greed and stupidity should not be attributed to a conspiracy.)
The underlying problem with fiat money is that it has no stabilizing mechanism at all. It makes ownership more profitable than production, causing increasing gap between the majority and the most richest, and that monetary power leaks into politics. This causes both internal problems, and international problems. Even right now, in Eurasia, there is at least one war brewing because of energy and money politics.
The thing is that no economic theory is absolutely right. Like pure kapitalism and pure communism just don't work. It has to be a mix which is adjusted for the situation at hand.
Exactly. The only thing we know
for sure, is that it must include competition and rewards for efforts, otherwise humans (and many mammals) just stop functioning properly. (
Fairness in particular is something that must be included, as the concept has been proven to exist even in capuchin monkeys as a behaviour-driving factor.)
And if you model the value of money as an amount of work, then a lot of pieces start to fall in place. In the end any kind of value is created by somebody doing work.
If only our Western financial systems actually worked that way, I'd be very happy.
Because the central banks control the money supply –– do remember that governments increase the amount of money by
going into debt for the central banks; it is free for the central banks but costs money for the governments! –– and can therefore control e.g. inflation and interest rates by controlling the supply, fiat money is completely separated from any actual measurable value. Its value is what humans believe its value to be, and that's it.
This is also the reason why some want a monetary system backed by a physical, limited quantity, like gold. For the opposite reason, keeping the fiat belief strong, it is also the reason why USA is so adamant about fiat USD being the world reserve currency.
What I've written here is actually quite noncontroversial; just about every experienced economist will agree on the above
off the record.
The core question is, what would work better? I don't know. I'd personally settle for a different emphasis on taxation, especially on sales of derivatives; maybe a small (less than 1%) tax on stock transactions. (For example, a quarter of the private wealth of UK is actually derivatives. That is not sane, nor is it productive, because it is basically banks gambling with free money. Taxing them would immediately kill things like high-frequency trading, which I believe would be a good thing.)
The annoying thing is that very few economists are suggesting any practical changes, really. They are mostly either just prostrating over how good the current system is, or lamenting how bad the current system is, without any real suggestions. The few exceptions, like Nobel laureate James Tobin, are few and far between. And of the few exceptions, some like Klaus Schwab ("You will own nothing, and you will be happy"), are obviously utterly crazy, completely ignoring the biology and needs of the human animal, and assuming humans can be forced to change their fundamental nature to fit their utopistic (and horribly harsh) future vision.
In a world of fiat currencies, NFT's make perfect sense.
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